Cooking with Rum – Baba au Rhum, Hansen's President's Cream & Classic Recipes

Rum has shaped European pâtisserie for over two hundred years – from Stanisław Leszczyński's Polish kitchen to the harbour cafés of Flensburg. Here are the classics every kitchen should know.

Baba au Rhum – the king of rum desserts

Invented around 1730 by the exiled Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński, who allegedly soaked a dry Alsatian Kugelhopf in rum and named it after his favourite hero, Ali Baba. Refined in 19th-century Paris by the patissier Nicolas Stohrer, it remains the most elegant rum dessert ever created.

Recipe (8 small babas)

For the dough:

• 250 g flour (type 550)
• 10 g fresh yeast
• 3 eggs · 60 ml warm milk
• 20 g sugar · 5 g salt
• 80 g soft butter

For the rum syrup:

• 500 ml water · 250 g sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, split · zest of 1 orange
• 150 ml dark rum (Jamaica or Demerara)

Dissolve yeast in warm milk, mix with flour, eggs, sugar and salt; knead five minutes. Add butter, knead until smooth and elastic. Rest 1 hour. Fill buttered baba moulds two-thirds full. Prove 30 min. Bake at 180 °C for 18–20 min until golden. Boil water, sugar, vanilla and orange zest for 5 min, take off the heat, add rum. Soak the warm babas in the warm syrup for at least 10 minutes, turning once. Serve with whipped cream and a final dash of rum on top.

Hansen's President's Cream – Flensburg's rum dessert

"Hansens Präsidentencreme" – created in 1903 in the Hansen pastry shop on Flensburg's Große Straße – is northern Germany's most quietly famous rum dessert. The name comes from a guest who declared it "fit for a president". A century later, it is still served in Flensburg's old cafés and at every proper north-German Sunday dinner.

Recipe (4 portions)

• 500 ml whole milk
• 1 vanilla pod, split and scraped
• 4 egg yolks · 80 g sugar
• 40 g cornflour
• 2 tbsp dark rum (good Jamaica style)
• 250 ml cream, whipped to soft peaks
• Dark chocolate shavings, candied fruit or a maraschino cherry to garnish

Bring the milk with the vanilla to a simmer. Whisk yolks, sugar and cornflour, pour in the hot milk while whisking, return to the pan and cook gently until thickened. Take off the heat, stir in the rum, cover with cling film directly on the surface, cool completely. Fold in the whipped cream. Spoon into glass coupes, chill at least 2 hours, garnish with chocolate shavings and a cherry. Serve cold with a small thin biscuit.

More rum classics from the European kitchen

Bananas Foster (New Orleans, 1951)

Created at Brennan's restaurant for a friend of the owner, Richard Foster. The drama of the flambé is half the dessert.

• 4 ripe bananas, halved lengthways
• 50 g butter · 80 g brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon · pinch of salt
• 60 ml dark rum · 30 ml banana liqueur (optional)
• Vanilla ice cream to serve

Melt butter and brown sugar in a heavy pan, add cinnamon. Lay in the bananas, caramelise 1 min per side. Off the heat, add rum, return to flame and ignite carefully. Spoon the flaming sauce over the bananas until the flame dies. Serve immediately over vanilla ice cream.

Rum balls (German Christmas classic)

• 200 g cake or cookie crumbs (or grated dark chocolate sponge)
• 100 g dark chocolate (70 %), melted
• 80 g icing sugar · 30 g cocoa
• 50 g soft butter
• 3–4 tbsp dark rum
• Chocolate sprinkles or cocoa to coat

Mix everything to a smooth, firm paste. Roll into walnut-sized balls, coat in sprinkles or cocoa. Rest 24 hours in the fridge before serving – the rum needs the night to settle in.

Rumtopf (north-German preserve)

A 19th-century north-German tradition: layer fresh summer fruit (strawberries, cherries, apricots, plums, grapes) with the same weight of sugar in a stoneware pot, cover with 54 % white rum (or strong dark rum), seal, store cool and dark. Add fruit through the season, never stir. Open at Christmas. Serve over vanilla ice cream, with semolina pudding or quark.

Coq au rhum (Caribbean answer to coq au vin)

• 1 chicken (1.5 kg), in 8 pieces
• 2 onions · 3 cloves garlic · 1 chilli
• 1 tbsp tomato purée · 200 ml dark rum
• 400 ml chicken stock · 1 bay leaf · 4 thyme sprigs
• 1 tsp allspice · salt, pepper

Brown the chicken in oil, set aside. Sweat onions, garlic and chilli, add tomato purée. Deglaze with rum (carefully – it can flame), add stock and herbs. Return the chicken, simmer covered 35 min. Serve with rice and lime.

Rum-marinated pineapple

Cut a fresh, ripe pineapple into thick slices. Marinate 2 hours in 4 tbsp dark rum, 2 tbsp brown sugar, the seeds of one vanilla pod and a pinch of black pepper. Grill or pan-sear briefly, serve warm with coconut sorbet.

The right rum for the kitchen

For pâtisserie and desserts: a dark, characterful Jamaica or Demerara rum (e.g. Appleton VX, Myers's, El Dorado 5). For Caribbean meat and fish dishes: a young white agricole. For rum balls and Rumtopf: 54 % white "Inländer-Rum" (the original German baking rum) or a strong overproof.

And for everything else – the moment after the meal, when the kitchen is quiet and the candles are low – pour a 30 ml of Christian V into a tulip glass. That's where the years in sherry oak finally make sense.